The Protocol Series
Jason A Campagna
In 2086, civilization depends on biotechnology implanted within the human body. Across a world rebuilt after the Sickness Wars, a global network enhances cognition, regulates immunity, and adjusts metabolism in real time. Generations have grown up trusting it.
When molecular engineer Elara Voss discovers a buried sequence within the implant network, she begins tracing signs of deterioration back to the decisions that made this world possible. With investigative journalist Conrad Mallory and systems analyst Kael Rourke, she uncovers a dormant protocol left by architects who understood that their creation might someday need to be questioned.
Across two timelines, Protocol Zero follows the people who built that infrastructure and those who must confront its consequences decades later. Every improvement answered a human need. Together, they created a dependence that now reaches into the body itself.
Recognizing what has happened is only the beginning. What would it cost to choose differently, and who would be willing to pay?
For readers of Peter Watts’s Blindsight, William Gibson’s The Peripheral, Gregory Benford’s Timescape, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, Protocol Zero explores how the technologies we welcome reshape our lives, our bodies, and our capacity to choose.
Protocol Zero arrives Fall 2027.
Subscribe for essays on the science, history, and human choices behind the novel, along with updates as publication approaches.
Book one of a trilogy, followed by Protocol One and The Final Protocol.
About Jason
Jason A. Campagna is a physician-scientist who has spent his career in academic medicine, hospital leadership, and drug development. He lives in Massachusetts. Protocol Zero is his first novel.